Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Building a Fantasy Language 2C: Consonants

In my earlier blogs, I talked about stress and syllables.Now I’m going to talk about the sounds that
make up those syllables, and how they fit into a given language’s sound system.

Just to be clear, the study of the physical reality of the sounds
and how they are made is known as phonetics.The study of the mental reality of the sounds and the classes into
which they are organized is known as phonology.I’m not going to be making much of a
distinction between phonetics and phonology here, as that would introduce too
much technical vocabulary and wouldn’t help too much in the construction of
your fantasy language.If you have a
specific question about this, leave a comment below!

A Scrap of History, Much Simplified

The growth of international contacts in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries meant that people who wrote in many different alphabets
were trying to communicate with each other.It also meant that the linguists who were trying to write down
previously oral languages were trying to decide how this should be done.

For a while, every linguist was coming up with his own system of
how to write down the language that he was studying.Unfortunately, this meant that no one else
could understand the linguist’s notes!A
symbol that meant one sound for one linguist (or group of linguists) might mean
a completely different sound for another linguist (or group of linguists).The letter <c> is a good example.One group of linguists used it for the [ts]
sound, while others used it for a sound between [t] and [k], and others used it
for a special type of <s>!

Eventually, a large group of linguists got together and defined
something known as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). They hoped that all linguists would start
using the IPA, so that all of them could understand each other’s work.In order for the IPA to be usable, its
alphabet needed to have a one-to-one sound-and-symbol relationship.Each symbol must have one sound, each sound
must be represented by one symbol.And every
significant sound (“phoneme”) used in languagemust have a
symbol.Since linguists are learning
about new languages all the time, the IPA is periodically updated with new
symbols or categories.

I will use the IPA in my discussion below; when I am using an IPA
symbol, it will appear between slashes: /a/ /v/ /q/

The Organization of the Consonants

The IPA classifies consonants in three major ways:

1. whether the sound is voiced or
unvoiced,

2. where sounds are made in the mouth,

3. and how the sounds are made.

Voiced or unvoiced? That is the question

Voiced or unvoiced is the easiest
question to answer for any sound.Put
two fingers on your voice box.Make the
sound /p/.P-p-p!Your voice box isn’t vibrating—the sound is unvoiced.

Now make the sound /b/.B-b-b!Your voice box is vibrating—the sound is voiced.

Common unvoiced sounds in English include
/p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, /θ/ as in thermometer, /s/, and /h/.Common voiced sounds in English include all
the vowels, plus /b/, /d/, /g/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/ as in sing, /r/, /v/, /ð/
as in that, /l/, /y/, and /w/.

Where are consonants made in the mouth?

Let’s take this rather
unfortunate-looking cross-section of a human head and focus in on the mouth
area.(Sorry for the picture quality…
I’m no artist.)

In the diagram above, pay special
attention to the three features of the mouth that are labeled below the
jaw.The alveolar ridge is the
hard bump that you can feel behind your upper teeth. The hard palate is the hard roof of
your mouth.The soft palate, or
velum, is the softer area at the back of your mouth between the hard palate and
the uvula.The uvula is the dangly thing
at the back of your mouth.

Sounds are made in a number of different
places.Some sounds are made by two lips
(/m/, /p/, /b/).Some sounds are made by
the upper lip and lower teeth (/f/, /v/).Some sounds are made by the teeth only (/θ/ as in thermometer, /ð/
as in that).Some sounds are made
by the tongue and the alveolar ridge (/t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /n/, /ɹ/, /l/).Some alveolar sounds are made with the tongue
tip curled backward.Some sounds are
made by the tongue and the hard palate (/y/).Some sounds are made by the tongue and the soft palate (/k/, /g/, /ŋ/ as
in sing). Some sounds are made by the uvula, some by the pharynx, some
by the epiglottis (the lid on the top of the voice box).Some sounds are made by the voice box alone
(/h/).

Languages often DO NOT USE one or more of
these places.English doesn’t use the
uvula or pharynx, for example.When you
create your fantasy language, decide which areas of the mouth your speakers
should use to make sounds.

How are the consonants made?

Linguists also organize sounds into categories
based on how the sounds are made.For
example, English has three nasal sounds, sounds that resonate in the
nose: /m/, /n/, and /ŋ/ as in sing.Most sounds only resonate in the mouth (oral cavity).Some languages can nasalize additional consonants.African languages use this to good effect: /mb/,
/nd/.

English also has six or seven stops (or
plosives).These consonants are called
“stops” because when you make these sounds you briefly stop the flow of air out
of your mouth.The English stops are /p/
/b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/ and /Ɂ/ (glottal stop).The stops are the most common consonants in the world’s languages,
although not all languages have all stops.Stops are also the sounds most commonly stuttered.

Some languages have a contrast between aspirated
and unaspirated versions of these stops (between unaspirated /p/ and
aspirated /pʰ/, for example).To
understand the difference between aspirated and unaspirated stops, put your
hand in front of your mouth.Now say pot.Do you feel the puff of air?That’s an aspirated /pʰ/.Now say spot.No puff of air!The /p/ in spot is not aspirated.Sounds other than stops can be aspirated, but
stops are aspirated more often.

A few stop consonants also have ejective
or emphatic versions, which have an even bigger air-puff than the aspirated
versions: /p’/ /t’/ /k’/.(There is also
an /s’/ ejective, but it is not a stop.)

English has many fricative consonants.When we make fricatives, we limit the flow of
air out through our mouths but never completely stop it.We can hold fricative consonants for a long
time: sssssss!The English
fricatives are /f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /s/, /z/, /ʃ/ as in shin, /ʒ/ as in Jean-Luc
Picard, and /h/.Many other fricatives
are used in the world’s languages.

English has two glides (or
approximants).These sounds are very
vowel-like and may even be used as vowels in some languages.In these sounds, parts of the mouth glide
past each other without ever having to touch: /y/ and /w/.

English also has two liquids./l/ is technically a lateral or
lateral approximant because when you make the sound the air must pass along the
sides of your tongue (laterally).The
English /ɹ/ is a rhotic or rhotic approximant, and is quite different
from the /r/ trillused by most other languages.

Several important sound categories do not
appear in English.Trills are
always voiced and are produced by rapid vibration of the lips, tongue, or
uvula.The Scottish /r/ is a good
example.The lateral fricatives are
only used accidentally by English speakers (quite commonly by small children),
and have a slushy quality.Clicks are
unvoiced pops made in different parts of the mouth.Implosives are voiced sounds made
while the speaker is breathing in.

Most languages use only a handful of these
ways of making consonants (manners of articulation).When you are building your own language,
decide which you are going to use.

The IPA Consonant Chart

In the following chart, note that while
many of the sounds do not appear in English, each of them is used in at least
one of the world’s languages.Note that
voiced consonants are bold in the chart.

Just to orient you… the voiced soft
palate fricative /Ɣ/ is the ‘ayin used in Arabic and Archaic
Hebrew.The unvoiced soft palate
fricative /x/ is also used in Arabic and Hebrew, as well as German (Bach).

There is one last category of consonants
to think about… the affricates.These
are common combinations of a stop and a fricative.In English we use <ch> a lot; in the
IPA, it is written /tʃ/.The English
sound <j> is also an affricate, written /dʒ/. /ts/ is an important
affricate in Hebrew and Japanese./dz/
and /kp/ are also important in some languages.The /ɧ/ sound is technically not an affricate, as it is not a stop plus
a fricative but rather two fricatives pronounced in the mouth at the same time
(/ʃ/ and /x/)./Ƕ/ is also not
technically an affricate, as it is a fricative /h/ plus a glide /W/.

How Can You Use This Information to Build
Your Own Fantasy Language?

The first thing that you want to do when
you are creating a language is to decide what sounds you want to work
with.Choosing your consonants wisely
can give your language a unique look and sound.

Keep in mind that sounds tend to “travel”
in classes.Languages generally do not
have only one stop or only one fricative.They have a selection of each.Languages do not have only one alveolar or one soft palate sound—they
have several.Languages don’t have just
one voiceless sound or one voiced sound—they have a selection.So choose your consonants logically.Pick all of the voiceless stops in certain
places, or both voiced and voiceless stops in certain places, or voiceless and
aspirated stops in certain places—don’t pick a lineup like /p/ /d/ /k/
/q/, where only one is voiced, and the voiceless stop is missing from the
alveolar place.If you pick one
consonant pronounced with the tongue curled back, pick more than one.You can choose not to have any fricatives,
but please don’t choose to have them all… it’s not that easy to tell them
apart!

After I discuss vowels in my next blog
post, I’ll give you so more practical tips on how to use all the language info
I’ve blogged about so far to create a sound system for your fantasy language.

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About Me

Kathryn McConaughy is a Christian and has studied biblical languages, linguistics, and ancient history. Most recently, she has been working on the fifth book in a series of young adult fantasies set in the world of King Arthur. She is the author of the ancient Near Eastern fairy tale "Guardian of Our Beauty" (in the anthology Five Magic Spindles), and the flash fiction story "A Bride-Price for Hinzuri" (in the May 2017 issue of Spark). When she’s not writing stories, she enjoys gardening, reading, sword-fighting, and writing papers on obscure aspects of Semitic grammar. Kathryn lives in Maryland with her list of dissertation ideas and her large personal library.